Rapid Determination of Titratable Acidity in Wines by Headspace Analysis

This work reports on an automated method for the determination of titratable acidity (TA) of wines by headspace analysis. The method is based on the neutralization reaction between the titratable acids in wines and bicarbonate solution in a closed headspace sample vial from which the carbon dioxide generated from the reaction is detected by gas chromatography (GC). The reaction and headspace equilibration can be achieved within 5 min at 60 A degrees C. The relative standard deviation was 2.1 %, and the detections in spiked samples were in the range of 97.0-104 % of the amount added. Wine samples from the market analyzed by the present method and by the official reference method gave results that the relative differences varied by less than 6.0 % from each other. In sum, the present method is rapid, accurate, and suitable for determining TA in wine in a wide variety of applications from processing to quality control.